Tales Within a Tale
by Ironcladvalkyrie
Summary: A fairytale (or many) in five acts.


I.

The girl shivered as she wrapped herself in a red blanket, still cold despite her closeness to the burning fireplace. While her mind refused to, her body seemed to be processing the events of the past few days, the pain in her shoulder, the fact that she was, for the first time, alone in the manor.

No, not alone. The dark figure towered over her when she sat on the floor, moving about the room in a curious search for what might have changed in the decades he had not roamed the grounds. Even when he sat down in the chair, his shadow cast ominously on the walls and danced alongside the flames.

Nevertheless, Integra looked straight into his face despite her diminished height, not an inch of fear in her was no defiance either; all she showed was a curiosity that mirrored his own. She looked intently at him for some minutes until she broke the silence.

"Alucard." He seemed to purr when she said his name, for years unpronounced among the walls of the Hellsing abode. "What red eyes you have."

He stared back, his unblinking gaze becoming deeper, if possible, and spoke in the smoothest, yet darkest, of voices. "The better to see you with, young Master."

She smiled, recognizing the game, and felt that it eased her into the acceptance of her new title, which sounded still foreign to her. She settled closer to the fire and talked once more. "And what big and pointy ears you have."

He leaned forward in his seat, shadows around him growing darker. "The better to hear you with."

Her voice came out with the slightest of tremors when she asked again. "And what sharp teeth you have." She held her breath and felt her body grow cold in anticipation of what was the logical outcome of the exchange.

He, however, only grinned, and replied: "Why, these are the better to tear your enemies to pieces with."

II.

He observed his Master's back as she faced the closed door. Light coming from within poured out and lit their feet, leaving the rest of them in darkness. She had grown taller in the span of a couple of years and become quite the formidable young lady, but his height far surpassed hers.

Her breathing was deliberate and he knew well she was trying to prepare herself for what would most likely be a tiresome debate with a room full of old men on some mundane matte

"Do you doubt before facing the world again?" Integra felt the slithering around her feet but refused to look down. "If you spend too long below its grounds, you might cease to belong to it… are you making your way back, Orpheus? Do you still hold in your grasp that which you came to find?"

"Ah, it is story time again, I see."

He sounded amused. "Will you not look back, my Master?"

Look.

Look.

 _Look at me._

She scoffed. "Have I descended to the underworld, then? I fear it was Hades himself I tried to retrieve."

His hands rested atop her small shoulders; a gesture that could only be interpreted as comforting by the person it was intended for.

"And should you not just eat from the pomegranate and join him in his domain?"

She allowed herself a smile and closed her eyes, taking in the moment of quiet understanding before she walked into the room and confronted the Round Table.

"Why should I, when I know the King of Hell will follow me wherever I go? Even if I turned around, he would not be snatched away as Eurydice was."

His fingers twitched only once at her answer and he moved closer to her. His voice was now only a whisper. " _Touché_. It might have been me, after all, who ate from the forbidden fruit."

They stood in silence once more, remaining in the space devoid of unnecessary words that had become their comfort zone.

She finally took a step forward and released herself from him.

"And thus I march into battle with Hades himself by my side."

He opened the door for her and they stepped into the meeting room together.

III.

"Integra."

"Hm?" She made no movement apart from putting what little was left of her cigar in the ashtray on her nightstand. The moonlight filtered through her curtains, bathing the two figures entangled in the sheets.

"Do you know the story of Rumpelstiltskin?" He spoke so low that she wondered whether he had truly mouthed the words or only formed them in her mind.

"In which the miller's daughter asked for help to spin straw into gold in order not to be killed by the king? I do."

He buried his face into her neck as his long fingers drew lazy circles on her belly. She sighed contently and leaned further into her pillows while he placed his lips on the soft spot behind her ear. Her bare skin prickled under his hands.

"I know of another young maiden who made a bargain with the devil himself to be saved."

She ran her fingers through his dark locks and closed her eyes. "And did her saving also come with far too high of a price?"

"Whether the price was high," she felt him smile against her skin when he heard her breath hitching. His serpentine touch moved further down her body "would be for her to decide."

Her legs intertwined with his and he gave in to the warmth she irradiated. She stopped him only for a moment to grab his face between her hands and make him meet her eyes. "But I already know your name. You were mine from far before I called upon you, and you have not disappeared." He replied only with a smile and she crushed her lips to his.

She whispered his name countless times that night, yet he did not leave her side.

IV.

The noise from the rest of the manor became absorbed by the walls and layers of concrete. She had once felt the embrace of its cold silence to be a respite; now she was not sure if being left with her thoughts was for the best, even when it had been herself who sought said solitude. When was the last time she had truly been alone, no shadowy tendrils at the edges of her consciousness, no echoing laughter haunting her?

In a cruel, ironic twist, once their only corpse had departed, the tunnels underneath her home had become a crypt, an empty skeleton of what had once been her life. How hard it is to mourn when you have no body, no urn full of ashes, not even the certainty of demise. His empty chair was a poor replacement for a shrine.

Did he sleep in a glass coffin now, lost amongst his demons and madness and regrets? Poisoned apple it had been indeed; not naivete but pure gluttony that had made him blind to the maneuver, covered by the illusion of a crimson feast.

And, were she to find him, would a kiss upon cold lips suffice to wake him, would it be enough to dissipate a nightmare of over five hundred years? For all it was worth, no knowledge of his name nor refusing to look back had made the wolf stay by the maiden.

Integra knelt beside his stone and wept silently.

V.

"I am home, Countess."

The words echoed in the room even after the door closed and they were left to themselves.

Silence fell heavily between them, interrupted only by his tongue swirling over his lips as he savored the last droplets of blood.

And, then, he was no more. His image blinked in front of her and she felt her stomach drop and a scream threatened to leave her throat.

 _Don't leave._

 _Don't disappear._

It could not have lasted more than a second, and her shaking form was caught by his arms at the hips. She looked down to find him on his knees, looking up at her.

"Alucard, what the-?!" she tried to free herself and take a step backwards, but he held her in place. She stopped trying to struggle and inhaled deeply to keep her temper. "You bloody idiot! What would you do that for?"

"I would hope that the passage of time that has been so generous to you has not diminished your willingness to jest, Integra."

She bit her lip. "Who are you to speak of time, when you dare leave for thirty years? You, who disobeyed his orders and vanished?"

"But I returned. Like Ariadne, you have cast your thread, and I followed, followed through the blood and the clash of weapons, I killed and left carnage in my wake, all the way back to you." ****

She felt her anger receding and chuckled. "Given the tragic end to their entanglement, I am not sure I am fond of the comparison. Besides," she stood firmly now, the strength having returned to her limbs. "are you not more akin to the Minotaur, Count?"

His laughter was clear and sincere and, although his eyes held the same intensity, they seemed less _haunted_.

"Then may the thread serve as a leash, may the monster follow the maiden and do her bidding."

She was satisfied with his answer and lowered herself to him.

The beast was bound once more, having handed his leash back to its rightful owner himself. There was nothing he wished for more than to remain lost within the labyrinth.


End file.
